1. Field of the Related Art
The present disclosure relates to paper technology, and more particularly, but not exclusively, to methods and systems for peeling or removing at least articles, advertisements, and/or illustrations from at least newspapers, magazines, and/or publications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, including a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three. Magazines may be distributed through the mail and/or through sales by newsstands, bookstores or other vendors and/or through free distribution at selected pick up locations.
In recent years, retail outlets have seen single-copy sales of magazines fall by a few percentage points. The figures are troubling for the magazine industry as the weak economy continues to put a damper on spending and consumers have plenty of free reading options available online. However, newsstand sales are important for publishers because they charge more per copy for single sales than they do with subscriptions. Magazines generally give a discount to those willing to subscribe in order to boost the overall circulation they may promise advertisers. Thus, newsstand sales tend to be driven by the economy and are a timelier indicator of a magazine's vitality than subscriptions, which tend to lag and which are driven by heavy discounting. While newsstand sales are a small percentage of most magazines' circulation, they are a profitable part of it because publishers typically charge only a fraction of the newsstand price for a subscription copy.
Although the Internet has been taking more of people's time for years, overall magazine circulation had been holding steady for a while. Thus, it is difficult to say how much of the decline is the result of consumers abandoning an old medium for the Internet and how much results from the recession hitting people's budgets. In order to increase sales, publishers have devised new strategies. For example, one successful strategy is publisher funded promotions (e.g., discounts off future magazine purchases) that have the potential to increase magazine sales considerably. For instance, in 2009, a joint newsstand promotion by Magazine Publishers of America™ (MPA) and wholesale distributor Harrisburg News™ led to a 15% rise in magazine category sales and a 25% increase in sales of 9 titles that received special display support. This publisher-funded promotion brought additional attention to the magazine category at retail, and enhanced the revenue and profitability of single copy magazine sales for retailers and channel partners.
However, more strategies need to be envisioned for positively altering the magazine, newspaper, and/or publication reading experience. For instance, almost every reader of magazines or newspapers or any other type of publications has wanted to remove and save an interesting article or advertisement or illustration or any other type of indicia on the publication. Many readers wish to keep clippings related to various categories of interest and save them for future reference and/or use. Most readers resort to ripping out the entire page of the publication or using a scissor to cut out select portions of the publication. Many readers do so by accidentally damaging the article of interest. As a result, it would be advantageous to be able to quickly and efficiently remove at least articles or advertisements or illustrations of interest without ruining or damaging or significantly altering the original publication, as well as the desired information to be removed.
In conclusion, the magazine industry is far from dead. However, it could use a few boosts of creativity by providing novel features or options that are deemed worthwhile by consumers. Therefore, there is a need for creative solutions to keep the magazine and newspaper industries thriving even in sluggish economic times. Thus, there is a need in the paper art for a technological solution that overcomes at least in part the aforesaid deficiencies.